Outgoing Gov. Sean Parnell today named two people to the board of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
Here's the official announcement:
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors
Gov. Parnell appointed Tomi Marsh and Allen Kimball to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors.
ASMI is a public-private partnership between the state and the Alaska seafood industry established to increase the economic value of our renewable seafood resources.
Marsh, of Ketchikan, has been commercial fishing since 1981 and has owned and operated the F/V Savage since 1990. She has fished crab in the Bering Sea and Pribilofs, longlined in the Aleutians and Gulf, and currently tenders salmon and the various dive fisheries in Southeast Alaska. Marsh is the co-author of "Fishes and Dishes," a popular seafood cookbook promoting Alaska's seafood. She is the president of OceansAlaska, Ketchikan and serves on ASMI's Shellfish Committee. She is appointed to a harvester seat.
Kimball, of Seattle, is executive vice president of international sales for Trident Seafoods, where he has worked since 1999. Prior to that, he was the operations manager for Arctic Alaska Fisheries Corp. and Tyson Seafoods Group, and a foreign fisheries observer with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Kimball received a bachelor's degree in zoology, with a fisheries management emphasis, from Brigham Young University. He is appointed to a large processor seat.
What are the real accomplishments of ASMI in the past five years? Can anyone explain what the organization has done that results in more dollars trickling down to the fishing and processing sectors. Certainly not the ASMI led elimination of MSC certification for salmon.....this has reduced profits. Is it time for this organization to be disbanded?
ReplyDeleteASMI need to start battling Fukushima fear mongering.
ReplyDeleteThe media is reporting lots of inaccurate information about radioactive fish from the Pacific coast. This is a real & serious threat to the markets of all Pacific coast fisherman .
ASMI has numerous accomplishments over the past 5 years. I will target on one particular area: opening new markets for traditional canned salmon.
ReplyDeleteDirectly after the largest salmon harvest in history (2013), ASMI dedicated over $1 million in reserve funding to target sales of canned salmon, in order to move the large volume of product through the marketplace without depressing prices.
Part of this new effort toward marketing pink salmon is referred to internally as the "Uber Athlete Campaign". This is ASMI's new approach to targeting young, super athletes who are seriously concerned about health and diet, and are not dissuaded by the presence of bones and skin in canned salmon (which has turned off a large portion of the younger generation to canned salmon). This is one of the best strategic marketing campaigns that I have seen ASMI design in the last 15 years. In my opinion, this new marketing campaign has the potential to turn around the canned salmon market from a "dying product" into a hip, trendy, and high demand product.
During the 2013 season of high production, ASMI was also successful in convincing the USDA to purchase millions of cases of canned pink salmon for distribution to domestic markets (i.e. food banks). For centuries, US farmers have had the support of USDA for these types of purchases during times of high production in order to stabilize prices paid to farmers, but this was the first time that Alaska seafood was included. This was not sexy marketing, but it was a big step towards a more stable market environment (e.g. prices) for Alaska seafood!
ASMI has also worked to get canned salmon into the Global Food Aid program as a source of protein for poor people in counties that the USA believes are important to our security.
As a salmon fisherman, I sit on ASMI's Salmon Committee and Technical Committee. All of ASMI's meetings are open to the public. In fact, at Pacific Marine Expo two weeks ago, the Salmon Committee scheduled a meeting at the show specifically to include more public participation regarding what ASMI is doing. Every year, ASMI accepts new industry participants (fishermen and processors) interested in serving on its committees (8 committees). While ASMI is evolving all the time, it is a great organization that is doing a lot of good for the industry.
Regarding Fukushima, ASMI has been working on this issue and has the following info posted on its website:
http://pressroom.alaskaseafood.org/alaska-seafood-and-fukushima-radiation-concerns/